The Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group works to help people whose rights have been violated and investigates cases involving such abuse, as well as assessing the overall human rights situation in Ukraine. The Group also seeks to develop awareness of human rights issues through public events and its various publications

No plans to surrender

The website Human Rights in Russia is now temporarily available to all its readers at the following address: http://hro1.org

As already reported, this is a forced measure due to a particularly ferocious DidoS attack on the site. Since 21 October the site has faced an onslaught from outside with a phenomenal number of requests effectively blocking the website and a frightening form of attack from within where viruses destroyed in one place emerge in different directories.

“Human Rights in Russia” ask their friends to pass on the temporary address to all who read their site.

How we can help HRO.org

We would be grateful for any information about sites which during these days (or over the last 6 months) have been subjected to a DDoS attack. This will at least enable us to better analyze the scale, nature and reasons for the attack.

We would also be very grateful for any suggestions from colleagues on possible operational cooperation in similar crisis situations.

We very much hope that the mass media, news sites and blogs will continue to follow this situation. It is not just a case of HRO.org. As we have already said, it is entirely possible that the technology of DDoS attacks is being developed for future use. This must give all food for thought.

We are unfortunately unable to reply often and in detail to all those who are asking us difficult technical questions at present. The HRO.org team is small and all our efforts at the moment are per force directed at restoring the server.

Please excuse us for not responding. We do read all letters and bear in mind all advice we are receiving. We will contact people if we need to clarify anything or gain any more information.

We are very grateful to our readers who have not abandoned us at this very difficult time.

As the previous reports published here suggest, this is no hooligan attack by an amateur hacker. The scale and technical sophistication involved suggest a very deliberate onslaught on a major human rights resource and information network.

We would stress again how important it is that we help one another and unite efforts against any such attacks by cyber-bandits and those who have ordered such attacks.

The war that they are waging is very dirty and it is against all of us.